I Had My Toes in the Water, Butt in the Sand...

But now I got my toes in my shoes and my butt in a seat, soon to be a plane seat back to the continental US. Well on my last day, I spent the majority of it in the lab. I went to Greg’s lecture, where we finished soils and moved into the topic of erosion. In the lab I calculated the amounts of Enterococci bacteria in my wallow and non-wallow samples and found that what I had hypothesized was supported by this data; that the wallowed areas would have much higher levels of bacteria. I wrapped up my work in the lab and did a last but of clean up then I headed back to my room to finish packing. I have had such a great experience out here and have learned so much about soils and the effects of pigs on erosion in Hawaii, as well as general research science tips and tools. I know I will be able to use the skills I learned on this interim in the future even if I don’t go into the soil management field.

Surfs Up

This morning I awoke to the stunning realization that my bike wasn’t among the bikes in the bike rack. This could only mean one thing; that last night in my fatigue I had forgotten to lock my bike and it had been stolen. I was planning on going down to the beach and see about surfing in the early morning, so I did on foot. When I arrived at the beach, the sun was just cresting over the point of Diamondhead Crater, which made a beautiful sight for my paddle out to the break. Over the next hour I managed to catch three waves as well as a nasty rash on my chest and inner arms so I decided that I had completed my goal and it was time to start trekking back to the lab. When I got there, I started on drying the remaining soil from the samples I collected yesterday for the calculation of Enterococci bacteria. After those were put into the oven for an overnight roasting I tried to start scanning a batch soils that Greg had been sent from Florida. Unfortunately I was unable to get a proper scan on the control, which we decided was due to moisture content. That job will have to be saved for my next trip out here. Greg then showed me the results from the scans I had already completed and it turned out that we could predict significantly well some of the elements of the soil just by running the scans in the Manoa Valley. By the time he was done explaining me the ins and outs of the results it was time for me to check my results from the Enterococci test. This consisted of looking at the trays I had made under a black light and noting how many of the wells fluoresced. Tomorrow morning will be analyzing those numbers, but from a preliminary look at them it looks that I might have gotten some convincing data. Well I have one more day left and then it’s back to South Carolina. I’ve had a great trip so far and will conclude it tomorrow.

Wallowing Out

Man has it been a day. It started out with me going into the lab and gathering together the necessities for collecting soil samples for Enterococci; plastic gloves, plastic spoons, plastic Ziplocs, and a trusty sharpie. Then I went to the transportation service center to pick up the vehicle Greg requested and I headed out into the Manoa Valley Watershed to see what I could find in the way of pig wallows. Also on my to-do list was to exchange clean memory cards for the ones hopefully containing pig images on the gamecams I had installed over the last 20 days. With that in mind I went to Lyon Arboretum first, one of the locations of one of the gamecams. On my hike up I looked for areas that seemed to have been disturbed by pig activity. Since this was an arboretum and was kept up by a maintenance crew regularly I was unable to detect any pig wallows. On my next hike, to Manoa Falls I was able to find an area of some pig activity back of the path a bit and took samples from the disturbed area and from a normal area of the same growth type. It was on my next hike that I hit the jackpot. I went to the Pu’u Pia site next because I had to switch out the memory card. Along the way I found four great areas of definite pig browsing and wallowing. I collected from them and headed back to the lab to start running the Enterococci tests on the samples. When I got back, Victor had already prepared a saltwater dilution for me, but it was not enough so I got to get some practice in of my own; the saltwater separates the bacteria from the soil. I then weighed out 5 grams of each sample, being a total of 20 (two from each wallow and correlating non-wallow). I then added 100 ml to each sample and put them all on the shaker for 45 minutes. While that was going on I prepared the next step and also returned the car. I then had to further dilute those samples to 1/10 and 1/100 solutions, by adding DI water. After that was all taken care of, I added Enterolert, a powder used to Enterococci identification, to all of the diluted samples. Those were placed into these interesting wells, which were finally put into the oven over night. Finally I was done with my work for today and headed to the Bruland’s to have dinner. On my way home I had to check the oven in the lab to make sure it was at the proper temperature. It was a full day, but with only two days left on the island I’m going to have two more full days coming up.

Tour de Honolulu

The other day I had seen a poster that was promoting an art festival down in Kapiolani Park that was going on this weekend, so today, after church I rode down there to check it out. There were a lot of tents selling different things, such as jewelry, clothes, painting, woodwork, and other crafts. I walked around for a while and started talking to a vendor selling photographs of marine animals. They were great pictures so started talking to him about where he took them and how he got into the business. It turns out that he was from Akon, SC and went to school at Furman. He also has taken pictures of manatees in Florida at the Three Sisters springs on the Cristal River, place that I have been going to since middle school. It was really cool to see what a small world it really was. After that I decided to see if I could find Chinatown in Downtown Honolulu. I rode my bike through down town and along the way stumbled upon the capital buildings. I saw the famous statue of King Kamehameha I, the person who first conquered and united the Hawaiian Islands. I also saw the amazing and beautiful Iolani Palace and a few other really neat buildings. After riding around there for a while and taking pictures I kept on in the direction of Chinatown, which wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. It was about 5 or 6 blocks of fruit and vegetable markets, meat markets, hair salons, and old rundown restaurants. If I was interested in getting some cool fruits or veggies it would have been a really neat place, but I wasn’t really in the market. I headed back to the beach after taking the bike tour of the place, good thing it wasn’t too crowded. IT is coming down to my last few days here and yet there is so much stuff that I would like to do, let alone all of the work I have to do on the pig project. I think I’m definitely going to have to come back again to get in everything.

Some Fun in the Sun

Well I had a full day out in the sun today, and my arms have the burn to prove it. I met up with a group of 6 other people at church this morning and we all headed out to the farthest most west point of the island, Kaena Point. We hiked for about 3 miles along a dirt and rock paths. It used to be a railroad for the cane plantations that died out around 60 or so years ago; you can still see some of the railroad ties. It was a beautiful hike, with the vast expanse of the pacific, and its waves crashing on the rocks to one side of us and the towering cliffs of the point above us to the other side. It was a hot day and the sun was beating down hard. If it wasn’t for the strong breeze I think I would have been toast. Along the way we found this really neat cave that opened up into a large underground room. When we finally reached the end of the point we found a whole slew of albatross nesting in the dunes. Over on the rocks at the water’s edge were the large Hawaiian Monk Seals and one pup. They were just lazing around enjoying the sun. We ate lunch, watched the seals and climbed on the rocks around the tide pools, seeing little critters here and there, and then started making our way back to the car. When I got back to my dorm it was already 5 o’clock so I decided to take a bike ride up the valley. On said bike ride I found some people playing pickup at a recreation center, so I joined in wearing hiking shoes and khaki shorts. It was a long day, but a good one.

Exploration Station

This morning I had Natural resource management class. Today we continued our lecture on soils and talked about the various orders of soil series and their properties. After class I went into the lab to put the results from the scans I completed into one single excel sheet. During my transfer I realized that one was missing, so I got to do one last scan before I was really done. Greg and I are going to look at those numbers at the beginning of next week. After that I had lab for my class, where we did hands on activities working to classify different soil types from around Hawaii into their orders. We also looked at some examples of soil pedons and learned how to name and define by color the different layers of soil. It was a very fun and informative lab, which took the material from the week and brought it to life, so to speak. After class lab I went back into Greg’s lab to look over what I had done and make sure it was good to go; it was. By that time it was already well into the afternoon and I only had a couple of hours of sunlight left so I decided to go explore another new beach I had seen on my run a few blocks farther down the coast. I walked along the rocks till I could find a place to enter the water and do some snorkeling. The reef was much healthier just these few blocks away from where it had been so bad. But by much healthier I do not want to give the impression that it was thriving. Still there were a few live coral outcroppings here and there, which is more than I can say about the reef off the beach I had been going to, and the fish populations were higher. After my swim I watched the sun go down into the haze over the ocean and started on my journey back. Somewhere among all my exploring I managed to lose my shirt, so it was a chilly ride home. Tomorrow I am going on a hike out at Kaena Point.

Full Day of Scanning

I went into the lab this morning with a task to complete and that is exactly what I did. My goal was to complete the scanning of the 48 soil samples using the diffuse reflectance spectroscope. It took me a few rounds to get a good system down, but by the time I was on my last few I had gotten the hang of it. It took me all morning and well into the afternoon to finish all the samples. After I finished I was exhausted and rode my bike down to a new beach I had seen on my run the other day. I was interested to see how the reef was faring a few blocks southeast of the major tourism hub. The sediment build up was the same if not worse here. I think that is due to the increased wave action that this area witnessed compared to the calmer waters of Waikiki. I saw a turtle, but he had no intent on hanging around me. Hopefully the work that Greg is doing will help heal the reefs over time.